After five long years, I finally got to play this game. Let's talk about it. BACKGROUND:
I first heard of Indivisible back in 2015, through a YouTube video showing off its demo. I remember being intrigued by the gameplay, then trying the demo myself shortly after, which led me to really fall in love with the concept. At the time, the game was at the tail end of its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, and despite not being able to contribute myself, I followed that campaign and even helped spread the word on it. The game did eventually get funded, and was in development for a very long time, releasing some time last year. It's kind of an understatement to say that I have waited quite a while to finally get a chance to play this game; even after its initial release (which came three or four years after the end of its crowdfunding campaign), I waited even longer for the Switch release (which came much later). Unfortunately, I couldn't buy it for Switch (because 2020 was bullshit in that regard too), but as luck would have it, it's on Game Pass PC right now. Yay! PLOT: Indivisible follows the story of Ajna, a teenage girl from Ashwat Village. She lived a relatively peaceful life training as a fighter under her father Indr, until her village is burned down by Lord Ravannavar's forces. Seeking revenge, she begins her journey, meeting all sorts of people along the way and discovering who she is (both in the figurative sense and the truth behind her parentage and the origin of her powers). Overall, I'd say the story is pretty basic. It's pretty much your classic hero's journey (protagonist living humble life thrust into conflict after a personal tragedy, discovers they have latent power that they'll now have to master to save everyone). The actual world-building is a bit inconsistent; there's a lot of exposition that adequately explains most of what's going on, but there are more than a few story threads that the game simply glosses over that could have helped make sense of certain things. It's also paced weirdly; there are moments when you're thrust into a big story event out of nowhere and moments when you're just left to meander around the world. Where I think this game succeeds is in its characters. Ajna herself is an interesting protagonist: she's an impulsive teenager with a one-track mind, and the story actually has her make plenty of big mistakes because of her emotional immaturity. Though she certainly grows as a person by the end of her journey, I really liked the approach of having her royally screw up and watch her go from not really caring to trying to make amends with all she hurt. Perhaps I just find it personally relatable, but the fact that Ajna is written like a human being instead of some incorruptible force of good made her journey worth seeing through despite the somewhat standard main story. Though I wouldn't say she's written perfectly (she's definitely a tad obnoxious, which I suppose is par for the course for most teenagers), I at least found the overall theme of growth a good one. Ajna meets a few dozen other characters throughout the story, and while their respective screen times and characterizations may vary, I think most of them are pretty interesting. All the party members get their own personal side quest where you learn more about them, an approach that I liked a lot, but I feel like they could have done more for some of the other characters. Some of them don't really have the most comprehensive backstories, others have interesting backstories that aren't elaborated on, and there is very little interaction between the other characters without Ajna being present. I would say the only thing that actually irked me about the story is how some of the characters interact with Ajna herself. There were some instances where party members will argue with Ajna (and be in the right), but they just acquiesce and go "OK let's do what you want". It really took me out of it at certain points. I will say that the banter between characters is at least somewhat amusing, however. PRESENTATION: Indivisible has a beautiful-looking hand-drawn art style, having a slight anime feel to it. The game leans into the anime a bit harder during pivotal cutscenes, as well as in the opening cinematic. There's a solid amount of polish to everything, with mostly fluid animations and lively backgrounds. The game takes heavy inspiration in real-life cultures for its environment and character design. There are locations that are reminiscent of Aztec cities, Moroccan coastal areas, and more; while I wouldn't go as far to say that they're mind-blowingly iconic, I did enjoy their aesthetics for the most part. Once again, the best part of this game in this department is its characters. All the character designs are wonderfully diverse, and like the locations, they take all manner of inspiration from different cultures. Though some designs are more memorable than others, I think they did a solid job overall representing various cultures without it feeling like diversity for diversity's sake. Even the throwaway NPCs look great, to the point that I'd mistake them for people you could recruit. I could also say something similar about the monsters, which all look pretty interesting for the most part. The music is pretty solid, but I can't really say that any one track stood out to me. The voice acting is also well done, but I found it quite jarring that despite all of the characters being voiced, not all of them get time to speak. I found this most unnerving in the personal side quests, the one part of the game where you expect everyone involved to be voiced. None of the side quests featured voiced dialogue, which really took me out of what would otherwise have been a fun story experience. GAMEPLAY: Indivisible's gameplay is split into two parts: exploration and combat. Let's break it down like that. The game's exploration is structured like a 2D platformer, specifically that of a Metroidvania. You'll be running and jumping around decently large areas to get where you need to go, occasionally encountering strict platforming sections that require a modicum of skill to get through. Eventually, you'll run into areas that require specific abilities to access, and you can backtrack to those areas once you've unlocked said abilities. Most of the abilities are straightforward and nothing new in terms of platforming mechanics, but there are a handful that I'd say are pretty interesting. I like Metroidvanias a lot, but this game's take on it leaves a lot to be desired. For one, the controls don't feel as good as they should, especially in terms of the abilities. Some of the abilities are mapped to the same button (with the only difference being the direction you input in conjunction), and there were many instances where I executed the wrong move. In addition, the way you acquire said abilities isn't satisfying at all; whereas games like Metroid or Hollow Knight have you work your way to acquire the ability, Indivisible just hands them to you whenever it feels like it. Lastly, some of the abilities are just straight up inconsistent in terms of behavior; I can't tell you how many times I've had to redo a platforming section because the goddamn axe won't stick to the fucking wall. All these problems made otherwise interesting platforming sections annoying to deal with. The exploration aspect itself also doesn't feel as polished as I would have liked. Although the game's various locations are all interconnected in one fashion or another, it doesn't feel that way in practice; it makes exploring the areas feel incredibly disjointed. Plus, the few fast travel points there are (and I mean few) are in such inconvenient spots that backtracking feels like such a chore. And to make matters worse, the map is a pain in the ass to use; not only is it wildly inconsistent in terms of what it actually shows, but the markers for key locations are bugged as hell, either appearing in places where nothing exists or not appearing where there is 100% a quest. That made finding the side quests (which, by the way, the game doesn't track, not even in a separate menu or anything) infuriating. Now, we get to the fun part: the combat. This is the aspect of the game that hooked me at the very beginning. In this respect, Indivisible is an action RPG, where everything is on a sort of active timer Final Fantasy-style. You still have to wait your "turn" in the sense that you have to wait for your party members' actions to be available (and the enemies do the same), but there's still a sense of real-time action as you can choose to spend those actions when you want. You'll see enemies walking about in the world as you explore, and going up to them triggers an encounter. In combat, you control a party of four, who are each mapped to one of your face buttons (for the sake of discussion, let's go with the Xbox/Nintendo notation of ABXY moving forward). Once a character's action is available, you can press the button they are mapped to in order to attack. You can do this in any order you want depending on how many actions you have available (e.g. you can choose to have everyone attack once, or just mash A and have one character attack). Every character has three inputs: a neutral input (which is just pressing the button), an up input (up + button), and a down input. The attack that comes out is unique to each character, so you'll have to learn what each move does on your own. Thankfully, there are only three inputs to keep track of, but I wish there were a comprehensive move list you can view (the character info that's available in the game doesn't actually tell you all that much). Of course, this is a double-edged sword; with only three moves per character, it's rather difficult to mix things up or make things interesting for yourself. While most of the characters have pretty straightforward movesets, a few have interesting properties. Some have multi-hits, others have large AoE attacks, a few have stance change abilities that switch up their moves, some set traps in the field, and there's even one that has a bit of a rhythm game mechanic to their moveset. One character in particular has a move that heals the entire party. There's definitely a generous offering of mechanics when it comes to individual characters. Once you start attacking, the RPG element morphs quickly into a fighting game. When you attack, you're pretty much stringing together all the actions of your entire party to beat the shit out of an enemy. The result is usually a combo straight out of Marvel vs. Capcom, and it gets pretty entertaining when you start learning which characters have launchers and which characters have good juggle moves. I really got a kick out of dishing out punishment in this game, and I did my best to mix and match my party and string together all sorts of combos. When you're not attacking, the enemy has an opportunity to strike. Normally, they will target one of your party members, and you have to block by holding the button they're mapped to if you want to reduce damage. You can even flawless block if you time it right, but from what I experienced, this mechanic can be a bit finicky. Some enemies have AoE attacks, and there's a button that allows you the entire party to block. The game also has something called an Iddhi Meter. This is filled up whenever you successfully attack or block, and drains when you hold block (which discourages simply holding block when you're on cooldown). If you have enough meter, you can choose to spend it by holding a shoulder button + a face button; doing so will execute that character's super move. The super move can even vary depending on how much meter you have. As much as I found amusement in the battle system, I don't think it's actually all that interesting now that I've played around 20 hours of this game. Sure, there's the joy I usually find when I lab out combos in actual fighting games, but that joy eventually dissipated when I found that the combo works on pretty much everything. Once I found a party setup that I was comfortable with, I had no incentive to change. I just went through the motions of encountering enemies, hitting my combo, blocking, and repeating the cycle. Of course, it doesn't help that everyone's movesets are dreadfully shallow, so there's much less room for variety. I realized this when I streamed a bit of my gameplay to some friends; one of them expressed that they found the combat "tedious" because I kept doing the same thing over and over. This realization on the game's combat also set in on three other occasions. One was when I was going over the Xbox Live achievements and found that the only one I was missing after finishing the game was the one for spending the Iddhi Meter 108 times. I had only used it only around 20 times in my entire playthrough, and most of those was for the full party revive (that I rarely ever needed). Doing one combo over and over was so effective that I didn't even bother to use meter. The second time I made the realization over the combat was after my friend told me about not being that enthused by the battles. I started switching up more shortly after, and while I found that same brief amusement that I did when I first started figuring out combos and learning character gimmicks, it fizzled out like before after a short while. I really like a lot of the characters in the roster, but the game makes the lot of them pointless once you've found the lineup that works for you. It also makes finding the game's optional characters a chore; what's the point of expanding your party if you only need four? Then again, I suppose this is par for the course with a lot of RPGs; most people don't really feel the need to switch out their party when they find what works for them, so perhaps this isn't that big of a bane. The only instance where the game encourages you to swap your party is during the personal side quests. Like I said, each character outside of Ajna has one, which you can trigger via dialogue after you get far enough along in the story. Though the story specifics are different, they're all exactly the same: go back to location A, activate dialogue, go to location B, fight one mini-boss, go back to location A. That's it. Combined with the cumbersome exploration issues I mentioned before, the lack of quest tracking (which meant I constantly forgot which of the side quests I'd activated), and the conspicuous lack of voice acting, the side quests feel much less exciting than they should, which is an absolute shame given how I like a lot of these characters. Lastly, I found myself actively avoiding fights when I got to the late game. I generally do that anyway in RPGs since I don't like grinding, but not when I find the battle system engaging. The fact that I even got to the point of avoiding encounters says enough, I think. And for the record, there is zero reason to grind out encounters; you do get XP, but from what I can tell, I genuinely think it doesn't mean anything. It would have been really cool if you unlocked new moves when you level up, but you don't. To add to the last point, the enemies, while diverse in design, don't have much to offer gameplay-wise. Sure, some of them have unique properties like armor (which can be broken by nearly every character anyway), absorbing magic damage, status effects, and AoE attacks, but it really doesn't mean anything. I just hit my one combo over and over and they die eventually. And sure, I can swap out characters to hard counter certain enemies, but I found that brute-forcing it works just as effectively. They also have a lot of health, which made things even more of a chore. The bosses aren't that more interesting, except for the final boss, which is interesting in a bad way because it pulls the rug from under you and forces you into a trial-and-error time loop that seems engineered to piss you off. There aren't really any other things I can add. The only thing that comes to mind is the Ringsel, the game's one optional collectible. They're hidden throughout the world Metroidvania-style, and you can cash them in for either attack upgrades (which increases the maximum number of actions your characters have in battle) or defense upgrades (which grants healing when you flawless block). I thought this was a cool idea, but there are literally a hundred of these goddamn things, and you can only upgrade both attack and defense a couple of times each. It's kind of overkill to have that many and only get five or so upgrades in total. Oh, this game also has a co-op mode and a New Game Plus. I don't know what either of those entail, but hey, there they are. VERDICT: I really wanted to love Indivisible, especially with how long I've waited to play this game, and how it combines a genre I love with an unorthodox action RPG battle system. But there are just too many elements that don't quite come together, like the combat that showed promise but eventually got stale, platforming that didn't feel smooth, exploration that felt tedious, and various other bugs and weird choices (like on-and-off voice acting and certain story/character elements). That said, I still found plenty to enjoy about this game, like its amazing art, inspired cast of characters, and the initial thrill of figuring out combat. I still think this game is decent for what it is, and I still like it, but it pains me to say that it's just not as amazing as I'd hoped, and that "I like the game" is as far as I can go. I don't know what to say in terms of recommendations. I think its gameplay is different enough from most other things to merit checking out, and its art is definitely beautiful, but as I said, a lot of those elements don't quite work as well as they should. You may find the platforming frustrating (especially if you've played more polished titles like Celeste), the exploration tedious, or the combat repetitive; hell, you might hate everything about this game. The story isn't exactly Oscar-level screenwriting, either, and as much as I like most of the characters, that's not necessarily an assessment that any other person would agree with me on. Thankfully, I don't need to trouble myself with settling on a final recommendation. This game has a free demo (the very same I played five years ago) you can check out for yourself. If you like what you played there, maybe you should get the game. All I'll say is that the platforming gets much tougher than what the demo puts you through (so if you already find it a pain to control, you might want to skip out), and whatever you figure out in terms of combat is as deep as it gets (and if you don't wanna do that shit over and over, you might get bored over time, but do note that you can switch characters in the main game). Also, consider the price before you buy; if you're dead set, it might behoove you to wait for a sale. Also, I ought to address the elephant in the room: Lab Zero doesn't exist anymore. That is because one of its executives was found to be a horrendous piece of shit who sexually harassed and bullied his employees (revealed through a string of damning allegations), and this caused the studio to dissolve (as everyone else chose to resign). This led to all planned post-launch updates, including a bunch of stretch goals promised during the crowdfunding phase, to be completely thrown out, so don't hold your breath on more DLC or bug fixes. If this is a deal-breaker for you, I get it, but it should be noted that the guilty party isn't single-handedly responsible for this game; there are a lot of well-meaning devs who put a lot of heart and soul into making Indivisible. Anyway, here's the Steam page. The demo is also accessible there if you wish to try it: Indivisible on Steam (steampowered.com) - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
July 2024
Derryck
|